Parimak: Welcome to void! Expect a challenge from me in the future! You've got the shading/lighting of characters down pat petty well in some of these, but unfortunately alot of that lighting expertise falls flat with all the backgrounds. Pay more attention to your light sources, especially at night, and reflect on where the shadows would appear and where they come from. Good lighting will make even the most basic looking backgrounds shine and pop proper. Don't be afraid to push hard shadows on your characters, either, if a light is hitting them hard on one side of their body go ahead and darken the whole other half and you'll notice a real difference in dimension. Shojin: So sad you couldn't finish ;( Of course you know I was invested in this story haha~ Seth and Ivan's faces are a bit too similar, you probably coulda done more to differentiate them from one another. I can see where you did so, but you could have taken it further, because the differences are slight. Expressions overall, you want to stretch more. Don't be afraid to twist those eyebrows further, make those eyeballs wider or narrower, whatever it takes to show when these kids are really showing rage or distress. cool stories bros

to both Parimak and Shojin.....there is nothing wrong with a longer story or high page count per se........ it is just that if you wish to do one properly both of you obviously need a MUCH longer deadline than 3 weeks(that is why we have longer deadline periods and artists get to choose which deadline they want).....either get better by starting smaller and working your way up(you will naturally get faster...but there are limits) or make use of the longer deadlines....that is up to both of you....just strive to always do your best and create the conditions required for doing your best...that is how your best gets better....don't cripple yourselves tip: ALWAYS allow more time than you think you will need for any project/task whenever possible...nobody and nothing loses(except the competition-here and in real life) when you are able to finish ahead of schedule....finishing somthing completely AND ahead of time especially in the face of obstacles or adversity feels FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!! You will ALWAYS have distractions or problems pop up..big and small...good and bad...and always when you don't need them...that is life No one benefits from cutting corners or incomplete work(except the competition-here and in real life) and I know it doesn't feel very rewarding....the lack of satisfaction this or having to do this causes is one of the biggest killers for artists both hobbyists and those working professionally

Shojin: Thank you for the kind words, I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Also thank you for the critique, I completely agree. This is my first time ever doing B&W, so that's definitely one of those technical aspects I should've kept an eye out for, but simply didn't think about. And BINGO! You totally won. I figured Xia would be easy to guess but Morrow was a stretch since I drew him so messily.. Nicely done XD Now down to the nitty gritty! One of the things I did feel like was a repeating thing in your comic is the facial and body expressions, while talking, the facial expressions didn't seem to vary too greatly, and in most panels, and even seemingly in the midst of action, everyone was just kind of standing there maybe with a hand or two lifted and their head slightly raised. There are parts where I feel like you handled it (balanced the facial expression, body expression and dialogue) right, but also parts where you could have handled it better... For example; Seth's excited sounding dialogue after Ivan tells him that Reinhardt circus is actually his circus doesn't quite reflect his facial or mostly -- his body expression. I think it would've looked a lot more natural if maybe Seth with a little bent over with his arms up from excitement, or maybe even one hand on his chest and the other out towards Gonta since he's also introducing them. Maybe he could have more of an open and grinning mouth as well. Another example: The boy with the corn-rows saying "Dude, let's get out of here!!", I found it hard to feel the action of the scene with him standing there, the shot waist-up, and him simply raising his arm. A more natural way to handle that would be him already running and looking back and yelling that instead. Assuming the running foot hanging off the next panel of that page is his. It would flow together much better Even in intense action or in a simple conversation, my advice to you would be; don't be afraid to get jiggy and even a little exaggerated with your facial and body expression. Even if you're going for a realistic style, the more expression in the face, torso, hands, arms, legs, feet, the better! Generally speaking, if you think about it, more expression makes any simple portrait, character illustration and even real photos more pleasing and fun to look at! Try it! And ONE last quick thing and I'll shut the hell up, I swear! Ivan's face in the last panel of page 7, I just think that would have worked much better if Ivan's head was facing much more down from the camera. I know exactly what you were aiming for, and with Ivan's head level with the camera it looks like his eyes just kind of disappear... Just a heads up! (see what I did thar?) I hope I didn't come off as a jerkwad with anything I said, or if any of it sounded condescending or mean, just my honest opinion! Anywho, really looking forward to seeing what you do next as well Shojin! I'll be keeping my eye out! Wei Ingman: Ahhh, I suppose you have a pretty good point! Maybe my story shouldn't have been as long since I admittedly ended up taking more shortcuts in my art that way. I'm just in this mindset that all my stories need a satisfying beginning and end, I feel like writing a satisfying 4 page story is seriously going to take some practice...lol, something to try out next time I guess! Thanks for the critique!

Parimak: I really enjoyed reading your story. It's a great story of the boys just being themselves and they had so much fun! As Hobbit mentioned, you use a lot of midtones, don't be afraid to make certain things lighter or darker. Use the full spectrum of the gray scale. Some of the shadows could have been darker, I think it would help pop the characters out and separate them from the background. I like the soft rendering of your style, with the addition of a variety of tones/shades it will look even greater. ALSO I'm gonna guess that the cameo characters are Xia and Morrow. Did I win? :D I hope to see more from you, you have good potential and I know you'll learn a lot here. Thanks for battling me. Wei: I will definitely work on shorter stories. I admit I let the page count get away from me when I wrote the story. I had trouble deciding what to condense, what wasn't necessary and the like, but I'll learn and with more practice I'll get better. My goal for the next time I battle will be to produce a finished battle. I wasn't happy with what I did either and this will push me to strive for greater heights. I know I have a lot to work on and I greatly value your critique and insight. Hobbitastic: Yes, sorry I also had trouble drawing them to differentiate them, not using this as an excuse. They are relatively similar in age (about 2-3 years apart) and about the same height, I tried to make Seth's face slightly more angular and Ivan's a little rounder (cuz he should have more baby fat). I guess the differences were too subtle or didn't do enough and admittedly if I had gotten to do grays like I intended it would probably help with telling them apart. If you have any suggestions drawing wise on how to make them more identifiable or different I would love to hear it so I can apply that in the future. I will continue to work on putting more backgrounds into my work I know that's still an achilles heel for me and I will clean up my pencils and inks. About the kids in the story, yes, you are supposed to sympathize with them because they experienced terrible tragedy. I wanted to make a story that addressed the victims and that there is a lot of grey area in reality. A character wants to reform, but faces a lot of opposition because they did do terrible things and doing good things doesn't wash away the bad things that have happened. To some they might be a hero through their good deeds and to others they'll still be the same monsters they've always been. For Ivan, he really hasn't known Arena for long and the havoc she wreaked (that I was referring to) was before she turned a new leaf. Ivan only met her as his mentor, so really all he's really seen is that she's a good guy. He knows she is scary powerful, but he's only seen her use her powers for good. For a young kid, I figure it's going to be really hard to come to grasps that the person you've looked up to has done terrible things before especially if he's only seen the good. So I felt like he would lash out, he doesn't know these people or if what they say is true, and the person who could verify is absent. Perhaps I didn't show/write that clear enough and that means I need to work on that. I wanted to try my hand at comic and was a bit more serious and dealt with real issues. So yes, Ivan was in the wrong for hitting someone and being so dismissive, he's not always in the right because he's a kid that still has a lot to learn, but it is because he was largely ignorant. I figure perhaps if he did know, he probably wouldn't be so quick to do the things he did and be more understanding. Which was why I tried to have Seth try to de-escalate things, gah, but I probably didn't do that right. Sorry this is so long, but this was my whole mental process I was going through when I was writing this. >_> Thanks for reading and critiquing.

These were okay comics, but there are some problems. Parimak: First, everything is pretty much the same gray and it makes it very boring to look at. A good trick is to squint your eyes and if you can't tell the colors apart, it's a good sign to make it contrast more. Also, I couldn't tell the boys apart. Seriously, I mistook them for each other for most of the comic. They're drawn way too similarly and that may have to deal with the designs. There is a bunch of weird stuff too, like page 10, last panel, where is that speech bubble going; it's coming from off the page- not Gonta. Shoji: I had the same problem with mixing up the boy characters. Your pages look a little gross sometimes. Don't know if it was deadline problems or what, but I agree with Wei. It was really hard to read your pages with scan smudges, pencil lines everywhere and messy inking. It looks /okay/ but I bet you can do better. Also, after a while, there are *NO* backgrounds. Anything would have helped; some is better than none. Also, I kind of don't know why the kid who parents were killed isn't in the right? I know they were being assholes about the posters, but she KILLED HIS PARENTS; I think it's okay if he hopes she's gone. She killed people those kids knew/their home, I kind of sympathize with them and not the main characters. Ivan totally makes the first punch so I can't really be on his side. I'm not saying I think they're right in saying Arena should be killed but I am saying I sympathize with them and not the main characters.

Wow, this is much more profound than what I'm used to seeing from you shojin...I like it! Poor Ivan :< Need I say again how much I love your art style, Seth is damned adorable, Ivan too, as always! I see lots of improvement in comparison to your older work as well, especially in the inked portion. You've done a fine job. -- I was gonna do some character exposition with Seth and his backstory and such, but due to the circumstances I decided to keep this story purely cute and heartwarming. XD As for the art, this is actually my 3rd or so time using Paint Tool Sai and drawing/shading with raster-based art in general, instead of using Adobe Flash and all its fancy effects. And from now on it's what I'll be using for all my illustrations. So this match was kind of eye-opening in a way, I'm starting to really love Paint Tool Sai and I really want to get good at it! I'll probably be re-doing Seth's design sheet in this new style soon. This was an amazingly fun match, it'll be a few months or longer before I return to Void for another, but a good and fun way to start off nonetheless! P.S Oh yeah, also, I shamelessly and lazily tossed 2 void character cameos in the last page there... good luck making them out XD

both of you need to question your deadline choices vs. page count/story length much more accurately...with more time both of these could have been MUCH better...3 weeks was not enough time for either of you to complete this large a story in this many pages Parimak -good first showing....alwys a good thing to see a newcomer start a match right away...keep it up same complaint as with your intro pages....you are drawing way too loose and sloppy....especially with the backgrounds and more importantly with the establishing shots you are showing a decent level of panel composition and page layout...so work at getting your rendering tighter...one other thing to really pay attention to is your overabundance of closeups and use of the same angle/view...its almost all big eyes and bobbleheads up in yer face Shojintakuru -equally good to see somthing from you.....i would however strongly suggest you focus on smaller stories with shorter page counts...I can quite certainly sympathize with unfinished work AND injuries, but we haven't seen a finished entry from you in a few years...and even then it was only once or twice having shorter stories/page counts will allow you to focus on a(much needed)higher level of quality and also give your hand more time to rest inbetween sessions...as it stands your story, layout and composition counts for very little alongside unfinished sketches...it has been very frustrating as a reader.. watching you struggle and fail to push yourself and your comics over the years...mostly because you have talent but don't seem to want to show it or improve on it I personally would love to see you finish your rendering with details and heavens forfend maybe some inks.... and give us a complete little comic with the same level of composition and layout

You too shojin! Thanks for battling me! This was super fun! Sorry to hear about your drawing hand... And about Gonta, don't sweat it hahah, I had trouble drawing him at first as well so I can relate... This match was awesome though, even sort of eye-opening, I certainly learned a lot. But anyway, yes, until next time... XD This is certainly not the last time I'll be drawing Ivan though ;)

Mmk, it's all uploaded now. Didn't get to finish this to quality I wanted, combination of work, and pain in my drawing hand (finger nerves feel f'ed up). Wanna apologize beforehand to Parimak for making Gonta look weird. I tried, but couldn't seem to stay consistent with him, SORRY! >_< Again sorry for the quality too, I'll do better next time around. Time to rest. Looking forward to seeing what you've got Parimak!

I better see some CUTEandmaybesomesickactionCOMICS FROM THE BOTH OF YOU Can't wait!

theres no way this won't be adorable!!!

The single most innocent and pure matchup this year.